If you’re a newbie couponer, then I’m guessing By Now You Feel Overwhelmed! I feel overwhelmed half the time and I’ve been couponing for awhile. When I started out I jumped full force in to this great hobby! I collected every single coupon, went shopping all the time and tryed to snag every single deal. Well, I learned my lesson because after a few months I was tired and burnt out.
The point I’m trying to make is that it’s alright to NOT clip every coupon and NOT snag every deal. When you’re started out it’s best to take baby steps and slowly ease in to what will work best for you. Couponing is like learning to read a book. It takes time and patience, but it’s well worth it in the end… and once you’re a coupon Queen, there is NO turning back!
Here are a few little tips:
Don’t feel like you have to clip or save every single coupon. There are so many coupons available, so to clip and save all the coupons you find would take way too much time and definitely make you feel overwhelmed. Plus, what I found happened is that I had huge pile of expired coupons on a monthly basis. If you have lots of expired coupons leftover, then that means one thing, you’re clipping and/or saving too many!
When clipping coupons ask yourself these questions–Will my family use this product? If we can snag it for free will we use it? Can we donate it? If you answered NO to all those questions, then don’t save the coupon.
Do NOT feel you have to use every single coupon you clip right away. This is what the manufacturer’s want you to do. If you use a coupon when a product is not on sale, then you’re usually not getting a good deal at all. In fact, it’s most likely less expensive in this situation to buy the store brand. So wait for a sale and then use a coupon or better yet use lots of “like” coupons to start stockpiling!
Building up a stockpile is the biggest key in my opinion to really seeing a HUGE reduction in your grocery bill! When an item is on sale and you have a coupon for it, then STOCK UP. I don’t mean by 3… I means buy as many as you have coupons for. If that’s 10, then great. The more you stock up, the less likely you’re ever going to have to pay full retail price again. Once you build a well rounded stockpile you’ll really only need to spend money on produce, milk and any other perishables.
Most of the time it’s best to buy the smallest product you can find and pair it with a coupon. When I first started using coupons I did not realize this. I would buy the biggest bottle of Laundry detergent, the family size shampoos and conditioners and then wonder why my bill hadn’t really gone down. Lots of times the smallest size products will be FREE after the coupon! Free is FREE and regardless if the product is smaller- it’s still FREE! If you have lots of coupons and buy enough of the smaller items, then soon enough it will add up to the larger item… BUT you will have paid a lot less! I always do this with travel/trial size products. As long as the coupon doesn’t exclude travel size, then you can use the coupon. I actually have a basket in my shower filled with travel size shampoos, conditioners and body wash. I LOVE getting to change up the products I use on a daily basis and with no cost at all to me!
Coupon Lingo:
The inserts: there are 3-4 different kinds of inserts to be found in your Sunday paper
SS: The SmartSource insert. Among other things, this is where you find the General Mills coupons,
RP: the RedPlum Insert.
P&G: the Proctor & Gamble insert.the only place where you can get coupons for Tide, Pantene,etc.
IPs: “Internet Printable”. IPs are the coupons that you can find online. Printing IPs require the installation of a “Coupon Printer” on your computer. Please don’t fear installing this program. The tracking cookie that it contains is in order to limit your printing of each coupon to 2 times per computer.
WYB: shorthand for “When You Buy”
OYNO: shorthand for “On Your Next Order”
Catalina: “Save $10 on your next order when you buy $20 in participating products”, it means that you receive a coupon for $10 at checkout. The coupon is printed not from the register, but from that little white machine sitting next to the register. That machine is made by the Catalina company and the coupons themselves have come to be called a “Catalina”.
OOP: shorthand for “out of pocket”. This is the cash that you physically pull out of your wallet. It is the cost of your purchase after all coupons, Catalinas, ECBs and RRs have been subtracted.
ECBs: stands for “Extra Care Bucks” and is specific to CVS. CVS’s Extra Care Buck program is a great way to get most of your toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo and many cosmetics for free.
The CVS coupon machine It looks like any other free-standing price-checker that you see at Target, etc. You scan your CVS card at the scanner, very often it will print out extra CVS coupons for name-brand products. If you have a manufacturers coupon for that item as well, you can use both of them at the same time to further reduce your costs! It also will spit out X/XX coupons too!
RRs: Walgreens version of an ECB program and it stands for “Register Rewards”.
BOGO, B1G1, B1G2F: different ways to say “Buy One Get One Free” or “Buy 1 Get 2 Free”
MIR: shorthand for “Mail In Rebate”
Blinkie: sometimes you will find a little machine hanging on the shelf in the supermarket aisles that dispenses coupons. These are called Blinkies because the machine usually has a little red blinking light on it
Peelies: these are coupons that you can often find stuck to the product itself.
Hangtag/Winetag: these are usually found on bottles (salad dressing, beverages, oils, etc)
Tearpad: can be found anywhere. they are simply pads of coupons found near the product display
Couponing Rules:
Here are some general rules:
1. Most stores will allow you to combine a store coupon with a manufacturers coupon. This is what is known as “stacking”. How can you tell the difference between a manufacturers coupon and a store coupon? The most obvious difference is a lack of a “Remit To” address. Another is a lack of numbers under the bar code (or a bar code that starts with letters or isn’t the standard 10-digit code).
2. Limit One Per Purchase simply means that you cannot use 2 of the same coupon on 1 item. A purchase is an item. A transaction is a group of purchases. You will occasionally see the coupon that says “limit 1 per transaction”, but they are very rare.
3. Internet Printable coupons have 2 “bar codes” on them that prevents their misuse. The first bar code is the one that gets scanned at the point-of-sale. The second is not really a bar code, but the Veri-FI seal with an individual ID number for that coupon….and no two coupons have the same number.
4. You can combine a coupon (such as $1.00/2) coupon with a BOGO sale. The coupon doesn’t actually require that you PAY for 2. The coupon just wants you to get 2 and the store is giving you one for free as part of their store sale.
5. In most cases, stores don’t mind you taking “peelies” or hangtags off of products for future use. They are provided by the Manufacturer and all they care about is that you use it at some point to buy their product.
6. Internet Printables are valid no matter if they are printed in black &white or color ink. As color ink is more expensive than black ink, set your printer to grayscale (medium quality) and print away!
